posted at 12:01 pm on March 7, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

The rejection of Condoleezza Rice as a commencement speaker at Rutgers by its faculty council won’t surprise many Hot Air readers. It doesn’t surprise Fox News commentator and generally liberal Juan Williams, but he’s not shrugging it off, either. Williams, who has written about the shocking treatment of black conservatives by his supposedly enlightened liberal brethren, makes sure to note this episode as yet another marker in a long arc of hatred and bigotry against African-Americans who dare to challenge liberal orthodoxy — even Juan Williams himself:

There is a disgraceful double standard amongst liberals, particularly those in academia, in the hatred they direct at black conservatives.

We saw this last April when the conservative neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson was forced to step down as a Commencement Speaker for Johns Hopkins University (where he ably served as the head of pediatric neurosurgery).

Liberals on the Hopkins campus mobilized against Carson because he criticized President Obama’s health care reform law and said that he opposed gay marriage.

I am not a conservative but I have spoken out for years against the staggering amount blind hatred directed at black conservatives by liberals.

Liberals are shockingly quick to demean and dismiss brilliant black people like Rice, Carson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Professor Walter E. Williams and economist Thomas Sowell because they don’t fit into the role they have carved out for a black person in America.

Black Americans must be obedient liberals on all things or risk being called a race traitor or an Uncle Tom.

In part, this is a power play more than anything else. The faculty at Rutgers don’t want to deal with people who oppose their preferred policies, or more importantly, cause others in their little bubbles to think critically about the only sanctioned ideology in those bubbles, either. In that sense, there is no double standard at work here — Jim DeMint and John Bolton would be just as unwelcome at Rutgers as Condoleezza Rice is and Clarence Thomas would be.

That is in itself a double standard. The same faculty who would protest if pushed out the door of their sinecures over political disagreements as a violation of academic freedom suddenly refuse to offer that same courtesy to the administration in its choice of commencement speakers, or to invited guests of the university. Rather than simply declien to attend or encourage others to do the same, they want heterodoxy silenced. ‘Freedom for me but not for thee’ is hardly a consistent approach to liberty, but it’s at least consistent with the sanctioned ideology they’re protecting.

Still, the vitriol of the reactions to Rice, Thomas, Scott, and the rest goes beyond even that double standard. The attacks on them as Uncle Toms and house slaves (and worse) show the place that politics and identity hold in the progressive mindset. It’s inexplicable to progressives that a black man growing up in the South might value individual liberty over group identity and be suspicious of government power, and so the only explanation for Clarence Thomas is that he’s insufficiently black. It’s not just on ethnicity, either, but also on gender. Take a look at the unhinged and ignorant rant by Jamie Stiehm attacking Sonia Sotomayor for her insufficient woman-ness by issuing a temporary stay in the Little Sisters of the Poor case against the HHS mandate. Steihm couldn’t be bothered to do even minimal research before branding Sotomayor a gender traitor over a meaningless pause in enforcement.

What is it called when someone assumes that people have to act and believe in a certain way based on the color of their skin or the composition of their genitals? The word is on the tip of my tongue …

Update: It’s 6:19 pm here at CPAC, and I just got a chance to read the comments — where I found out I’d gotten the “freedom for me but not for thee” backwards. Ugh. I’ve fixed it, but I wanted to make sure I acknowledged the error.

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Well, that’s if you falsely believe that Condi Rice is a CONSERVATIVE, rather than an establishment REPUBLICAN which is what she actually is. But yes, obviously there is different standard for black democrats and black Republicans.

Tempted to muse on blind squirrels and stopped watches, but kudos to Juan Williams for this:

Liberals are shockingly quick to demean and dismiss brilliant black people like Rice, Carson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Professor Walter E. Williams and economist Thomas Sowell because they don’t fit into the role they have carved out for a black person in America.

Black Americans must be obedient liberals on all things or risk being called a race traitor or an Uncle Tom.

I never understood the use of Uncle Tom as a derogation. As I recall from the book, he was a noble, selfless man who even sacrificed his life to buy time to allow some other slaves to escape the horrors of Simon Legree.

Wow, there is a really racist Democrat piece of work in the Faux News comments:

A Black republican will never win the White House. Neither could a Latino. Blacks and Latinos see any conservative as a traitor, a lackey for the white man. The only exception to that is the Cuban community who don’t consider themselves as Latinos. One you people understand this then you may win back the White House.

It comes back for more!

Gee Juan, your a socialist, why are even working for Fox? You need the money that bad? Blacks see Black consevatives as really white mans dogs. That is the simple truth. Tell it like it is why don’t you! You play both sides from the middle Juan. I am sure you are hated by your own people. I feel sorry for you.

Another Tolerant Democrat checks in:

Actually, I hate ALL conservatives, regardless of color. Williams plays the race card!

It’s funny…the reasons I get upset for most people who disagree with me politically/socially is because I believe they have views that provide too much reach for government, violate the constitution and reward failure while punishing success.

The reasons people get upset with me is because I’m a racist, hate poor people, hate women and cling to guns.

Which side is the voice of logic/reason again?

No joke, I had an acquaintance seriously suggest I wanted to throw all poor people out onto the streets and watch them die in the gutter because I suggested we could do more to end welfare fraud…

The so-called double standard is necessary means to block evil conservatives from having a forum in influencing the impressionable minds of innocent, naive and gullible college students. In this case diversity from having exposure to alternative ideologies and ideas is highly discouraged. The students might start the wheels turning in their minds and reject the more socially beneficial and just world of Utopian progressivism.

I never understood the use of Uncle Tom as a derogation. As I recall from the book, he was a noble, selfless man who even sacrificed his life to buy time to allow some other slaves to escape the horrors of Simon Legree.

Why, good lefties are all for black people being involved in public life. Some of their best friends are black. It’s just that blacks like Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice are getting a little, well, uppity. They should know their place.

In the unconstrained (utopian) vision of man, mankind can be made “perfect” and the more advanced (i.e. more educated, right-thinking) should be able to make the less advanced do what is needed to advance them to this “perfect” state. If one truly believes that, then anybody who does not fully and completely accept all the judgments of the “advanced” ones (such as those who believe in the constrained vision of man – man will be mostly as he is) must then be a real threat to mankind (to the goal of making mankind “perfect”) and must be suppressed. Otherwise, the lesser ones may choose to follow the path these “other” ones preach rather then the correct path preached (and demanded) by the “advanced” ones. Largely because seeking your own truth and happiness may be seen as an easier trail to try and follow than the truth and happiness that their “betters” will force them to follow.

And yes. Liberals do not see minorities, “the poor”, or anything else they presumably champion as human beings; they see them as pawns and puppets to push their agenda.

This is why liberals demonize and call for the murders of any minority member who dares talk back to them or disagree with them. Liberals brand any minority member who does not do as liberals command a race traitor, a Jewish Nazi, mentally ill, suffering from “Stockholm syndrome”, etc.

I am not a conservative but I have spoken out for years against the staggering amount blind hatred directed at black conservatives by liberals.

Local talk radio this morning included an interview of one of Juan’s sons from CPAC. Yes, that CPAC. Turns out his kids are more conservative than he is! The one subject they can’t talk about….. Obamacare.

The attacks on them as Uncle Toms and house slaves (and worse) show the place that politics and identity hold in the progressive mindset. It’s inexplicable to progressives that a black man growing up in the South might value individual liberty over group identity and be suspicious of government power, and so the only explanation for Clarence Thomas is that he’s insufficiently black. It’s not just on ethnicity, either, but also on gender.

One thing that should not be missed or diminished from these actions and behaviors is that so much of it is coming out of academia.

I wonder if many fully understand just how academia has been overrun by progressive fascists – not only to continue to indoctrinate more to their vision and agenda, but to use the ‘prestige’ of their positions to ‘justify’ their reprehensible actions, words, and agenda.

Why, good lefties are all for black people being involved in public life. Some of their best friends are black. It’s just that blacks like Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice are getting a little, well, uppity. They should know their place.

Wow! I didn’t expect some of the Condi hate here at HA. But let me make a couple of points.

Those Rutgers graduates would have heard an outstanding speech. She’s articulate, a brilliant orator, and has something of meaning to say. I can see why a bunch of bitter “intellectuals” too damned stupid to make it outside of their safe tenured world of academia despise Condi Rice. Susan Rice, on the other hand, is their kind of black woman (never held a real job, worthless, and arrogant).

Secondly, no matter what her views on irrelevant social issues, this nation was better served with Condi Rice in the foreign policy/national security process than they are with the Rice who lied her ass off about the effects of a YouTube video.

Wow! I didn’t expect some of the Condi hate here at HA. But let me make a couple of points.

Those Rutgers graduates would have heard an outstanding speech. She’s articulate, a brilliant orator, and has something of meaning to say. I can see why a bunch of bitter “intellectuals” too damned stupid to make it outside of their safe tenured world of academia despise Condi Rice. Susan Rice, on the other hand, is their kind of black woman (never held a real job, worthless, and arrogant).

Secondly, no matter what her views on irrelevant social issues, this nation was better served with Condi Rice in the foreign policy/national security process than they are with the Rice who lied her ass off about the effects of a YouTube video.

Happy Nomad on March 7, 2014 at 12:39 PM

ONE person (when you wrote that) calls her a republican and not an conservative and is not insulting and somehow thats a lot of hot air hate ???

Our dictionaries now contain, “selfie” and “vacay”. You sure this is what you want to get indignant about :-)

MJBrutus on March 7, 2014 at 12:32 PM

One is silly teen girl talk. The other is pretentiousness. Don’t write it if you wouldn’t speak it in everyday conversation. And if you do speak it in everyday conversation, you better be not be American, or people will think you a mega-snob. And they would likely be right.

While we’re at it, could someone PLEASE demand that liberals shows us the memo, or meeting, or phone call where President Bush and/or Ms Rice were informed there WERE NO WMDs in Iraq?!!!

The fact is, we all know there was no such event. Intelligence agencies told them it was “a slam dunk”. They were certain Saddam had WMDs. Even the “16 words” was backed up by intelligence from
a supposedly reliable source: Joe Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame.

It’s been 11 years. For all that time the left (and media)are
themselves the ones who have lied about “Bush lied”. Bush may have made a lot of mistakes. He’s human. But he DID NOT lie us into war.

I never understood the use of Uncle Tom as a derogation. As I recall from the book, he was a noble, selfless man who even sacrificed his life to buy time to allow some other slaves to escape the horrors of Simon Legree.

MJBrutus on March 7, 2014 at 12:19 PM

Well, your answer is right there in what you just said – he helped other slaves escape the plantation – can’t have that.
But the left does this all the time.
Do you really think the left has any understanding of MLK and what he really stood for either?

One is silly teen girl talk. The other is pretentiousness. Don’t write it if you wouldn’t speak it in everyday conversation. And if you do speak it in everyday conversation, you better be not be American, or people will think you a mega-snob. And they would likely be right.

By all means, let’s dumb ‘em down. BTW, I have used both since I was a child. It is not a “british” exclusive.

katy the mean old lady on March 7, 2014 at 12:34 PM

Can’t find an authoritative source, but I think ‘amongst’ and ‘whilst’ are American regionalisms. A lot of colloquial speech, in the South, particularly, is actually a hold-over of earlier imported British usage. The old chestnut that Appalachian dialect, for examples, preserves a good deal of Elizabethan English usage. Or Scots-Ulster usage. Anyway, I heerd a lot of it growing up, too.

Juan, the left sees blacks as their moral blank check. So long as they have you in their camp, they can get away with anything by labeling the opposition racist.

Consider how often the left uses that successfully to counter any kind of argument. That is the power blacks give the left. And its worse, because you also give them critical votes. If blacks didn’t vote for democrats they wouldn’t win elections.

You give them their power. Without you, they’d have nothing.

And its worse still… because what do they give you in return for all of that?

Look at the black community and behold their gifts. They didn’t end slavery. That was republicans. They didn’t desegregate Washington… republicans again. And the civil rights act was as much the work of the republican congress as it was anything else.

So what have they given you for your loyalty?

Consider why they get so upset when they see a black republican. Its actually the democrat blacks that are uncle toms. They’re the ones on the plantation. The republican blacks are broken free.

And there is nothing a master hates more then a freed slave.

Possibly I’m guilty of hyperbole. For that I apologize, I am using the terms and language of the subject which is given to such exaggerations. But the point is that they hate republican blacks because they represent an existential threat to their power. If enough blacks flip they’re done. It means the end of playing the race card and it means the end of easy elections with 98 percent of the black vote.

See it for what it is… They’re vampires. And their jaws are firmly clasped around your necks.

Can’t find an authoritative source, but I think ‘amongst’ and ‘whilst’ are American regionalisms. A lot of colloquial speech, in the South, particularly, is actually a hold-over of earlier imported British usage. The old chestnut that Appalachian dialect, for examples, preserves a good deal of Elizabethan English usage. Or Scots-Ulster usage. Anyway, I heerd a lot of it growing up, too.

I never understood the use of Uncle Tom as a derogation. As I recall from the book, he was a noble, selfless man who even sacrificed his life to buy time to allow some other slaves to escape the horrors of Simon Legree.

MJBrutus on March 7, 2014 at 12:19 PM

I’ve never the understood pejorative use either. I may have to re-read the book. On the other hand, under the modern rules of racial interpretation, I don’t have the right to an opinion as my family have long been WASPs.

Just amongst us girls, it really means that you don’t get around much. Just as it is common in your region, for example, for one to spit ‘baccy juice through the gap betwixt one’s remaining front teeth into a paper cup before speaking, in other places people find the use of words like whilst to sound mildly poetic.

Can’t find an authoritative source, but I think ‘amongst’ and ‘whilst’ are American regionalisms. A lot of colloquial speech, in the South, particularly, is actually a hold-over of earlier imported British usage. The old chestnut that Appalachian dialect, for examples, preserves a good deal of Elizabethan English usage. Or Scots-Ulster usage. Anyway, I heerd a lot of it growing up, too.

de rigueur on March 7, 2014 at 12:48 PM

Possibly. I’ve traveled and lived widely in the South but don’t recall hearing it. Where in the South are whilst and amongst used?

The reasons people get upset with me is because I’m a racist, hate poor people, hate women and cling to guns.

Precisely! It’s like a guy who has known me since the 70s who, when we disagreed about 0care on a Facebook thread, immediately said the problem was that I had no compassion for others. His only response when I tried to explain my thinking was: “Beam me up!”
I truly fear that rational discussion with the other side has become impossible.

Williams can be annoying and a bit myopic at times – but his “Eyes on the Prize” is fantastic – hence his take on this matter. At least Juan knew back in the 60’s – plenty of white folks were getting their arses kicked or killed for the Civil Rights cause.

If our public schools hadn’t been propagandizing our youth for the last several decades, this kind of nonsense would be banished to the past.

There is no balance even pretended anymore to what is being “taught”, and the result are young adults who believe the worst of anything conservative, and are convinced that everyone on the right are anti-black, anti-poor, anti-education, rabidly gun-toting, bible-thumping corporatist thugs who wish to enslave America with their beliefs and “keep them down”.

It is sadly ironic that the opposite is the truth, and that good people like Ms. Rice who have worked hard their whole life to achieve lofty goals pay such a cost for having the nerve to announce their common-sense beliefs and for having the gall to be successful.

Hey juan, is it echoing and dark where you are? Yup, head in arse. Your side does it all the time. They be keepin the black man down too. Been to the inner city lately juan to see what dem politics has done to the black family.

And the solution is simple: get the federal government out of the education business, especially all subsidies, payments, contracts, loan guarantees, and grants to higher education, its faculties or students.

Then, as independently funded institutions, they can spend their endowments as they please. If they wish to support far left faculties and forbid dissent, it’s all on their own tabs.

By all means, let’s dumb ‘em down. BTW, I have used both since I was a child. It is not a “british” exclusive.

katy the mean old lady on March 7, 2014 at 12:34 PM

This Irish git labours over the colour of folks whose behaviours include a good hose pipe and bad organisational skills. We jolly well laugh when the folks in the States give fanny packs as pressies. Time to pound the pitch and play me some footie.

diversity is an everyday ingredient of university life and one of our greatest strengths

Wade on March 7, 2014 at 1:18 PM

Liberal claptrap at its finest. In fact, this bit of non-wisdom is a catechism of the Left. Here is a clue. Counting noses to ensure that the percentage of noses of each race is represented does not strengthen a school, a business or a society. Ensuring that opportunity exists and encouraging all people to pursue said opportunity is what matters.

Furthermore, an imbalance in racial or ethnic representation in an organization is not an indicator of an unfair or unjust admission practice. It is commonly the case of an underlying failure of a societal subculture to instill the motivation needed to succeed.

For Rutgers, the premier public research university in New Jersey, diversity is an everyday ingredient of university life and one of our greatest strengths

Wade on March 7, 2014 at 1:18 PM

They may claim that to be Settled Science, but a cursory glance at notable Rutgers alum looks overwhelmingly Caucasian. The only place where notable black Rutgers alums are present in great numbers? Former athletes.

But I noticed that one Rutgers alumni is so Lily-White, he literally came out of Central Casting.